Mud Dog has released their second CD entitled "River of My Soul" which features 11 new original acoustic songs. This CD was a Nominee for Outstanding Blues Recording in the 2008 Western Canadian Music Awards, and winner for Best Canadian Blues CD/Album in the 2008 Toronto Exclusive Magazine Awards.

Written by Steve "Mud Dog" Sainas © 2004. © Sainas Songs 2008

Visit Mud Dog @ http://muddog.ca
Visit Christopher Allen @ http://christopher4u.wordpress.com

MUD DOG - These Bones Are Bare

Born in Ottawa, Ontario and raised from the age of five in Vancouver, British Columbia, Christopher Allen is a self taught harmonica player. It all started at the age of ten after hearing a song called "Room to Move" by John Mayall on a transistor radio. After falling in love with the sound of the harmonica, there was no stopping him from listening to records of other players and learning how to play this instrument for himself. His harmonica influences are Charlie McCoy, James Cotton, Lee Oskar, Magic Dick, Sugar Blue, and the late Norton Buffalo and Sonny Terry.

Audiences have now enjoyed Christopher Allen's high energy stage performance for over 35 years with such artists as the late ragtime composer Eubie Blake, renowned jazz singer Esther Phillips, Hoyt Axton and Garth Hudson from The Band.

Adding to the list, comedian actor Chevy Chase, Sneezy Waters, Amos Garrett, Chicago's "Big" Joe Duskin, Jim Byrnes, The Lincolns, The Minglewood Band, Fosterchild, Goddo, Thor, Ray Materick, Alibi, Juno Award winner Kenny "Blues Boss" Wayne, The Family Brown, Lisa Brokop, and k.d. Lang. He has also played with members from The Guess Who, Levon Helm Band, Mitch Ryder & The Detroit Wheels, The Powder Blues, Skywalk, Highway 101, Sawyer Brown, Tanya Tucker and The Charlie Daniels Band.

Christopher has performed on television and in concert for Tina Turner, Burton Cummings, Foster & Lloyd, Ronny Hawkins, Riders of the Purple Sage and invited on stage by the late Jeff Healy. He has recorded commercials, singles and albums with Canadian artists Terry Jacks, Susan Jacks, Murray Porter, Rick Scott, Ed Molyski, Jess Lee, Kenny Shaw and Rocky Swanson, produced by Nashville's Ralph Murphy. He is also featured on Paul Hyde & The Payolas hit song "Stuck in the Rain", produced by the Grammy and Juno Award winner David Foster.

His harmonica can also be heard on the CBC television series "The Gold Rush Days" along with other educational and documentary films, including the National Film Board of Canada's award winning short film "Growing Up in Paradise", produced and directed by Vancouver filmmaker Sandy Wilson. Christopher also taught the harmonica for 12 years with an eight week course through the Vancouver School Board. He wrote a beginner's manual titled "A Sure Way To Play Harmonica" to teach his own musical methods to students of all ages, so that anyone could learn to play this instrument.

In 1989, 1990 and 1992, the British Columbia Country Music Association nominated Christopher Allen as Instrumentalist of the Year. He is the only harmonica player in Vancouver to have ever played the American and Canadian National Anthems (solo) at Nat Bailey Stadium. His talents range from teaching, singing to playing the Blues, R&B, Funk, Soul, Bluegrass, Folk, Country, Southern Rock and Harmonica Instrumentals, all with a unique style of his own.

Christopher is currently playing with Mud Dog, Vancouver's only original Delta Blues band and Wes "The Bluesman" Mackey. On a more recent note, the acoustic duo Mud Dog were selected by the White Rock Blues Society to represent them in Memphis, Tennessee for the 2011 International Blues Challenge, Solo/Duo Category. While there the Mud Dog Duo recorded a new live album called "Sun Set" in the legendary Sun Studio which will be released in the near future.